| Sidney Drazin |
Popular NW Liquor Store Falls Silent
Proprietor's Death Saddens Community
2005
As word of Drazin's death spread yesterday, customers stopped at the shuttered
shop, where a long-stemmed rose was tucked inside the front door handle,
beneath a sign that read, Ask About Today's Soup. A typed testimonial
described the mustachioed, pistol-packing proprietor as the neighborhood's
gallant, old school, crusty champion.
He was an irascible, pugnacious Adams Morgan institution, selling Merlots and
Chardonnays as well as pastrami sandwiches and bagels and coffee, which his
regulars ate as they read the newspaper and yakked away at a long table he set
up near the entrance to the store.
Sid was the surrogate parent to all the lost souls of Adams Morgan, all the single
people who needed a confidence boost, said Max Lockwood, 35, a federal policy
analyst who lives nearby.
At Comet, owner Sidney Drazin sold Pastrami sandwiches and bagels and
coffee, along with liquor, and set up a table for patrons to chat.
(Photos Katherine Frey -- The Washington Post)
Lockwood said he spent most weekends at Drazin's table, which over the years
transformed the shop into a kind of plastic-chaired neighborhood salon. The
topics ranged from the war in Iraq to the Redskins to whether the new Starbucks
opening a block away would survive.
Everyone came, Lockwood said. You could be a construction worker, a lawyer;
there would be a financier. It was the embodiment of democracy.
Drazin's wife, with whom he celebrated their 55th anniversary Saturday, declined
to provide details of her husband's death, except to say that it was related to an
aneurysm on his abdominal aorta. She said he opened the store Tuesday, then
complained to his employees that he didn't feel well. An ambulance took him to
GWU Hospital, where he died a few hours later.
His heart gave out, said his wife, who worked with him in the store several days
a week. A funeral is scheduled for 10 a.m. today at Tifereth Israel Congregation
on 16th Street NW.
Bernice Drazin said she was unsure of the store's future. We don't know where
we'll go from here,she said. If we sell, it will be to good people. But there won't
be a Comet like there has been.
Sidney Drazin, a native Washingtonian, graduated from Roosevelt Senior High
School and served as a clerk in the Navy during World War II. He was injured
in the war, his family said, when the Japanese attacked the PT boat to which he
was assigned.
After the war, Drazin ran a Bethesda-based printing business before taking over
his mother-in-law's liquor store at 14th and Harvard streets NW, where he
befriended a broad cross-section of humanity. I remember going down there as a
kid and being the only white face, said Marc Drazin, 46, one of Drazin's three
children. I got to know pimps and thieves and murderers as people. It was an
education.
During the 1968 riots that ravaged 14th Street, his son said, Drazin's business
was one of few that looters did not destroy. Drazin sold the store in the early
1970s and bought a gas station on 14th and Euclid streets NW, where a survey
once found that he sold the region's most expensive gallon of gas. He made no
apologies. No one is gouging anyone, he told a reporter.
He bought Comet, near 18th Street, in 1980. As the neighborhood became more
gentrified, he sold more wine than hard liquor and began offering an array of
sandwiches, including The Sidney -- roast beef topped with Swiss cheese, lettuce
and tomato.
He set up the table, his wife said, after undergoing an operation in 1990 and
discovering that people wanted to come in and chat while he recuperated in an
easy chair. The table became an institution discovered by generations who rolled
through the neighborhood.
A recent devotee, Jim Wehmeyer, 46, stopped yesterday to peek in the darkened
window. We moved to the neighborhood not just for the house, but for people of
all stripes, he said. Sid was his own separate stripe. He also had great bagels
Proprietor's Death Saddens Community
2005
As word of Drazin's death spread yesterday, customers stopped at the shuttered
shop, where a long-stemmed rose was tucked inside the front door handle,
beneath a sign that read, Ask About Today's Soup. A typed testimonial
described the mustachioed, pistol-packing proprietor as the neighborhood's
gallant, old school, crusty champion.
He was an irascible, pugnacious Adams Morgan institution, selling Merlots and
Chardonnays as well as pastrami sandwiches and bagels and coffee, which his
regulars ate as they read the newspaper and yakked away at a long table he set
up near the entrance to the store.
Sid was the surrogate parent to all the lost souls of Adams Morgan, all the single
people who needed a confidence boost, said Max Lockwood, 35, a federal policy
analyst who lives nearby.
At Comet, owner Sidney Drazin sold Pastrami sandwiches and bagels and
coffee, along with liquor, and set up a table for patrons to chat.
(Photos Katherine Frey -- The Washington Post)
Lockwood said he spent most weekends at Drazin's table, which over the years
transformed the shop into a kind of plastic-chaired neighborhood salon. The
topics ranged from the war in Iraq to the Redskins to whether the new Starbucks
opening a block away would survive.
Everyone came, Lockwood said. You could be a construction worker, a lawyer;
there would be a financier. It was the embodiment of democracy.
Drazin's wife, with whom he celebrated their 55th anniversary Saturday, declined
to provide details of her husband's death, except to say that it was related to an
aneurysm on his abdominal aorta. She said he opened the store Tuesday, then
complained to his employees that he didn't feel well. An ambulance took him to
GWU Hospital, where he died a few hours later.
His heart gave out, said his wife, who worked with him in the store several days
a week. A funeral is scheduled for 10 a.m. today at Tifereth Israel Congregation
on 16th Street NW.
Bernice Drazin said she was unsure of the store's future. We don't know where
we'll go from here,she said. If we sell, it will be to good people. But there won't
be a Comet like there has been.
Sidney Drazin, a native Washingtonian, graduated from Roosevelt Senior High
School and served as a clerk in the Navy during World War II. He was injured
in the war, his family said, when the Japanese attacked the PT boat to which he
was assigned.
After the war, Drazin ran a Bethesda-based printing business before taking over
his mother-in-law's liquor store at 14th and Harvard streets NW, where he
befriended a broad cross-section of humanity. I remember going down there as a
kid and being the only white face, said Marc Drazin, 46, one of Drazin's three
children. I got to know pimps and thieves and murderers as people. It was an
education.
During the 1968 riots that ravaged 14th Street, his son said, Drazin's business
was one of few that looters did not destroy. Drazin sold the store in the early
1970s and bought a gas station on 14th and Euclid streets NW, where a survey
once found that he sold the region's most expensive gallon of gas. He made no
apologies. No one is gouging anyone, he told a reporter.
He bought Comet, near 18th Street, in 1980. As the neighborhood became more
gentrified, he sold more wine than hard liquor and began offering an array of
sandwiches, including The Sidney -- roast beef topped with Swiss cheese, lettuce
and tomato.
He set up the table, his wife said, after undergoing an operation in 1990 and
discovering that people wanted to come in and chat while he recuperated in an
easy chair. The table became an institution discovered by generations who rolled
through the neighborhood.
A recent devotee, Jim Wehmeyer, 46, stopped yesterday to peek in the darkened
window. We moved to the neighborhood not just for the house, but for people of
all stripes, he said. Sid was his own separate stripe. He also had great bagels